Lens of Liberty

In an article posted at Cato, Will Wilkinson critiques Glenn Beck and his 9/12 movement by claiming that Beck’s professed love for individualism is inconsistent with his nationalism. While the article also takes on David Brooks and his “collectivist conservatism”, I would like to focus on the points raised about Beck. I think there is merit to the criticism, or at least some interesting areas for discussion, but wonder if deriding a sympathetic voice in a largely hostile media environment for ideological impurity is a wise strategy.

Mr. Wilkinson points to Beck’s “jingoist tropes” as an example of his underlying collectivist leanings. Speaking of Becks 9 principles of his 9/12 project:

The first principle is “America is Good.” What is that if not a recklessly unconditional commitment to the national collective?

It’s a reasonable point that patriotism is allegiance to the collective of the United States and that the principle Beck asks us to accept is vague at best. I wonder if Mr. Wilkinson would be more comfortable if the stated principle was “The ideas upon which America was founded are good”. However, having heard this explained by Beck when he announced it on his radio show, I know he means that, on balance, America has been a force for good in the world. I suppose from the pure individualist perspective, that isn’t really an improvement, having moved from the national collective to the world. The real question is can you be an individualist and patriotic? Does belief in individual liberty preclude pride in any nation? Or is the problem that America today is so far removed from the concept of liberty that such pride is incompatible with individualism? The topic has been discussed by those smarter than me, I only raise it now to question whether patriotism and individualism are mutual exclusive. Does individualism negate the idea of national identity?

I do agree with Wilkinson’s statement about conservatives and individual liberty:

For too many conservatives, “individual rights” is code for their right to remain unburdened by whatever exercises of state power they happen to dislike.

If state power is used to prohibit legal arrangements between gay couples or to continue a failed prohibition policy then individual rights don’t seem so paramount.

Glenn Beck is not be a pure libertarian, but in a time when free markets and individual liberty are under relentless attack by a behemoth government, it is foolish to deride someone who exposes the ideas of libertarians to such a wide audience. What other major media program has devoted as much airtime to Ron Paul, the Ayn Rand Institute, and the like. He devoted a full hour, at least once, to interview Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr, far more than any other network or cable program. My point isn’t that the criticism is unfair, or even inaccurate, just that if you’re looking for targets I would start elsewhere. Sean Hannity, anyone?

So the GM recovery plan apparently involves selling the company to the U.S. government.

That should work out well.

Great line on this latest outrage:

What I want to know is, if the union is going to own Chrysler, and the government owns GM, who will the workers threaten to strike against?

The Campaign for Liberty has linked to this speech several times recently. Take the time to watch it.

As the torture debate continues, I’m continually frustrated by the the flawed argument that much of the debate circles around. It does not matter if torture works or not. If you believe that torture is antithetical to American values, then does the technique’s effectiveness matter? Ditto proponents of torture, if waterboarding or other “enhanced interrogation methods” are not in conflict with our values, then you shouldn’t need to use it’s results to justify them.

Lindsey Graham is a winner, just ask him:

I’m not sure what he thinks he’s won, but I know that Americans have lost their liberty, control over their government, and face serious economic problems in the near future in large part because of Sen. Graham, his party, and his colleagues across the aisle. So congratulations!

If anything good can come out of the morass in which the Republican party now finds itself, it is that worthless politicians like Sen. Graham are replaced with people who have respect for the values this country was founded on, most importantly liberty.

Enter Gov. Mark Sanford:

I don’t know if Sanford is the real deal, but at least he is speaking the right language. Instead of pointing libertarians to the door, as Graham proposes, Sanford say he wears the label “libertarian” as a badge of honor.

Last week, I wrote that it was a bad idea to let Sanford and fellow Governor Rick Perry use the Tea Party name for their town hall meeting, and I stand by it. But to be clear, I said that not disparage those two men, but the positions they hold. The Tea Parties must remain citizen driven if they are to have any effect.

Thousands of stimulus checks have been mailed out to dead people.

The feds blame a rushed schedule, because all the checks have to be cut by June. The strange this is, some of the checks were made out to people — like Romonini — who were never even part of the Social Security system.
(emphasis added)

Just wait for them to get their hands on everyone’s health care.

Anyone who has wished that there were more people like Ron Paul in congress got some good news today. The Congressman’s son, Rand Paul is considering a Senate run in Kentucky. Now if we can just find a few hundred more!

Rand Paul for Senate 2010 website

Emails and other documents made public this week paint an ugly picture of the tactics used to force banks to accept TARP funds:

But the strategy also depended on surprise. Treasury didn’t want to give the executives much time to consider the offer, talk to their boards of directors, or listen to different points of view. They wanted to lay the documents on the table and force the CEOs to sign. All at once if possible.

Vito Corleone would be proud.

Judge Andrew Napolitano on natural law:

Whatever else the government does, no matter what it claims the goal is and no matter the stated justification, because it curtails human freedom it should be suspect and presumed to be unlawful and unconstitutional. If these libertarian principles had been accepted throughout history, then slavery-an obvious violation of natural rights-and all the evils it has spawned would never have existed here.

Radley Balko at Hit & Run, thinks that those of us who scoff at this move might be missing the value of a change in rhetoric:

The drug war imagery started by Nixon, subdued by Carter, then ratcheted up again in the Reagan administration (and remaining basically level since) has had significant repercussions on the way drug policy is enforced, from policymakers on down to street-level cops. It’s war rhetoric that gave us the Pentagon giveaway program, where millions of pieces of surplus military equipment (such as tanks) have been transferred to local police departments. War imagery set the stage for the approximately 1,200 percent rise in the use of SWAT teams since the early 1980s, and has fostered the militaristic, “us vs. them” mentality too prevalent in too many police departments today.

I remain skeptical. President Obama is the product of style-over-substance marketing and this announcement is nothing more than appeasement. Decriminalization is a growing sentiment and Obama knows that many of his supporters favor it. Just like gay marriage and Iraq, he’s trying to look like the change he promised without having to actually, you know, do it.